A few days ago, I read this quote from President Harold B. Lee, who was the prophet of the church from 1972 to 1973:

Testimony isn’t something that you have today and you keep always. Testimony is either going to grow and grow to the brightness of certainty, or it is going to diminish to nothingness, depending upon what we do about it. I say, the testimony that we recapture day by day is the thing that saves us from the pitfalls of the adversary. (From Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee, chapter 5 “Walking in the Light of Testimony,” part of the last paragraph under subheading “What can we do to strengthen our testimonies?”)

I have found this to be true in my life. If I’m not doing things every day to help my testimony grow, it doesn’t take long before it feels like it’s getting smaller and less bright. That’s why I asked the kids to speak about some of the most basic parts of the gospel that help us build our testimony – baptism, the Holy Ghost, praying, and reading the scriptures. Another basic part of the gospel that helps our testimonies to grow is keeping the Sabbath day holy and that’s what I’d like to talk about.

In Exodus we find the commandment:

• Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
• Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
• But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
• For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Today it seems like a lot of the world has forgotten the Sabbath day. But this commandment remains in force.

President James E. Faust, who was one of the Twelve Apostles, in a general conference talk in 1991, gave three reasons that God has asked us to honor the Sabbath. First, as our creator, He knows that we need physical rest and renewal. Second, God knows that we need spiritual renewal and strengthening and that “left completely to our own devices without regular reminders of our spiritual needs, many would degenerate into the preoccupation of satisfying earthly desires and appetites.” (General Conference, October 1991, “The Lord’s Day” by James E. Faust). Third, keeping the Sabbath day holy is a way to show our love for God by obeying one of his commandments. I’d like to focus on the second reason.

The May 1998 issue of the Liahona has a very good article called “Remembering the Sabbath Day” by D. Kelly Ogden. In it, he writes:

“Most of us need daily reminders, such as prayer and scripture study, to keep the Lord and his work in our hearts, but we also need one whole day out of seven to focus our attention and our hearts on him completely—to rest from worldly things that may too easily work their way to the top of our priority lists....

Anciently, Israel was known as a people who set apart one day in seven for rest and worship. The Lord said that Sabbath observance was “a perpetual covenant … a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever” (Ex. 31:16–17). The penalty for disobeying this law of the Sabbath was death (see Ex. 31:14–15; Ex. 35:2; Num. 15:32–36). Today, physical death is no longer the penalty for desecrating the Sabbath. Yet just as the ancient Israelites who broke the law were cut off from the camp of Israel, modern children of God who willfully disobey the commandment cut themselves off from the Spirit and bring a type of spiritual death upon themselves.”

One of the most important things we can do to honor the Sabbath is to attend our church meetings. Our weekly sacrament meetings, Sunday School, Relief Society and Priesthood are where we meet and worship with our brothers and sisters. Here we receive and give strength and fellowship. It’s important for us to be here. Even though I understand very little of what I hear in the Plovdiv branch, I am blessed by being among you. I see you as brave pioneers of our church in Bulgaria and I’m thankful for your examples.

Sometimes we might feel like we’re not getting much good from going to church. I remember going to church when I had three little boys all under 2 1/2 years old. It seemed like I spent most of my time walking the halls of the church, certainly not hearing talks or lessons or feeling the spirit. I wondered why I should keep coming. But I knew that I wanted to keep up the habit of going to church and that I wanted to teach my children the habit of going to church, and eventually, the kids grew up and I could enjoy church again like a regular person.

If going to and participating in our Sunday meetings is already a well-ingrained habit, there is plenty we can do to improve our observance of the Sabbath day. President Spencer W. Kimball, who was the prophet from 1973 to 1985, famously said:

“The Sabbath is a holy day in which to do worthy and holy things. Abstinence from work and recreation is important but insufficient. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts, and if one merely lounges about doing nothing on the Sabbath, he is breaking it. To observe it, one will be on his knees in prayer, preparing lessons, studying the gospel, meditating, visiting the ill and distressed, sleeping, reading wholesome material, and attending all the meetings of that day to which he is expected. To fail to do these proper things is a transgression on the omission side.” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, pp. 96–97; quoted in President Faust’s talk referenced above.)

Everyone is happy that President Kimball includes sleeping on this list of good Sabbath activities. Other good activities could be family history, writing in our journals or writing a personal history, listening to or singing inspiring music, missionary work, writing letters or email to family and friends and missionaries, and spending time with our families.

I’m grateful for the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. After preparing for this talk, I want to do better at allowing the Sabbath to renew my spirit and build my testimony.